The findings appear to be that bad weather does help Republicans and does supress turnout. However, in studying presidential elections, he finds few that would have had their outcome changed. Here, however, was one exception:

The results of the zero precipitation scenarios reveal only two instances in which a perfectly dry election day would have changed an Electoral College outcome. Dry elections would have led Bill Clinton to win North Carolina in 1992 and Al Gore to win Florida in 2000. This latter change in the allocation of Florida's electors would have swung the incredibly close 2000 election in Gore's favor.

Since we know from Gore that heavy snow, no snow, heavy rain, and no rain are all caused by global warming, his 2000 electoral defeat was obviously caused by manmade CO2.

Much as I dislike Gore, watching a blatantly manipulated election and ending up with Dubya running wild for 8 years kinda takes the humor out of the last sentence.

me

That was objectively funny, though... just imagine him mmmwhahahing something along the lines of "Finally, our masterplan becomes clear!"

That said, yes, the Bush junior years were an unmitigated disaster for America, but there is little indication that Gore would have done better. Just take a look at Obama.

Smock Puppet

> Since we know from Gore that heavy snow, no snow, heavy rain, and no rain are all caused by global warming, his 2000 electoral defeat was obviously caused by manmade CO2.

Clearly, t'was all a plot by Bush cronies in the oil & coal industry to get him elected.

Smock Puppet

> Much as I dislike Gore, watching a blatantly manipulated election and ending up with Dubya running wild for 8 years kinda takes the humor out of the last sentence.

Much as I dislike idiots, seeing mindlessly stupid blathering about a "stolen election", in complete ignorance of studies by such Conservative Rags as the The Miami Herald, which found that no amount of vaguely legitimate "chad fondling" would have resulted in a Gore win, followed by a stupid idea that the middle election didn't represent an opportunity to "fix" the problem if there were one, well, such stupidity and ignorance does manage to put real humor into the above-quoted comment...

IgotBupkis, President, United Anarchist Society

> there is little indication that Gore would have done better. Just take a look at Obama.

Not at all, there is EVERY indication that Gore would have done better, in the fact that Saddam would still be in power, armed with nuclear weapons, and one or more nukes or bioweapons would have already been used on US Soil by terrorists.

Gore would have dithered and whimpered "whatever shall we dooooooo?!?!?!"ed his way into position as the Worst PotUS since Jimmy Carter. Then Obama would have had no shot at that title, since, after all, we'd be in the middle of another 12-yr conservative PotUS cycle just like the one that followed old James Earl...

"Every generation, the tree of liberty must be replenished with the experience of what postmodern liberal Democrats are all about..."
- IGotBupkis, President, United Anarchist Society -

stan

Florida was only close because the networks screwed Bush out of thousands of votes in the panhandle. Using a badly flawed prediction operation from tilted exit polls, they announced that Gore had won Florida before the polls closed in the Central time zone part of the state (heavily GOP). As word spread that the networks had already called the state for Gore, thousands of voters who were patiently waiting in line to vote walked back to their cars and left.

The 2000 election isn't interesting because of the impact of weather. It is interesting as an example of how a dishonest, biased news media can work to try to steal an election through selective and inaccurate reporting of results in an effort to influence those who have yet to vote.

me

@IgotBupkis

Err, ok. I kind of like you, but you are aware that there never were any nuclear or biological weapons or weapons programs in Iraq during the second gulf war (Bush himself is on record stating so; Bush senior did the job of disarming Iraq thoroughly in the first Gulf war), that the Bush jr. administration fabricated plenty of fake evidence to make the case for war and that if we hadn't barged in there or at least had the smarts to pull out once we got rid of Saddam instead of killing more civilians than during the war in the occupation phase we'd have spend a few trillion less of taxpayer money, would be exactly as safe and probably would have had a peaceful revolution by now like we've had in Tunesia and Egypt at absolutely no cost to the American taxpayer?

Kicking the constitution to gain a little imaginary safety from terrorists and the money we sank in to the Iraq war as well as making sure people could live for free in McMansions and be compensated for their troubles by my taxes are the lasting legacies of that moron. (And, just to be very clear: the next moron isn't any better, and I don't expect whoever takes office next to be an improvement on these two).

Don

Me: One point of order: "... peaceful revolution by now like we’ve had in Tunesia and Egypt at absolutely no cost to the American taxpayer?"

We've invested 100's of Billions on Egypt to keep the dictator in power. If the country falls apart and turns into another Lebanon, that's for almost nought.

I don't think I'd call losing an "investment" of 100's Billions "no cost". There might be something salvageable there, but I sincerely doubt that the present Administration is capable of an actual salvage operation.

Che is dead

me,

Bush jr. administration fabricated plenty of fake evidence to make the case for war ...

And, if "... there never were any nuclear or biological weapons or weapons programs in Iraq during the second gulf war ..." and geniuses like you and Code Pinko knew it, then why were the Democrats killing all of those kids? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbIX1CP9qr4

You claim that if we had not liberated Iraq that there, " ... probably would have had a peaceful revolution by now like we’ve had in Tunesia [sic] and Egypt ...". If Saddam was such a paper tiger, why did the U.N. authorized no-fly zones to prevent a potential genocide of the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south? I guess that they just weren't as certain as you that Saddam was an imaginary threat. Yeah, yeah, I know, the war cost 2 trillion dollars. If you're going to make shit up, why not 10 trillion or 20 trillion?

Pathetic.

IgotBupkis, President, United Anarchist Society

> but you are aware that there never were any nuclear or biological weapons or weapons programs in Iraq during the second gulf war (Bush himself is on record stating so; Bush senior did the job of disarming Iraq thoroughly in the first Gulf war), that the Bush jr. administration fabricated plenty of fake evidence to make the case for war and that if we hadn’t barged in there or at least had the smarts to pull out once we got rid of Saddam instead of killing more civilians than during the war in the occupation phase we’d have spend a few trillion less of taxpayer money, would be exactly as safe and probably would have had a peaceful revolution by now like we’ve had in Tunesia and Egypt at absolutely no cost to the American taxpayer?

OK, let's fisk this:

> but you are aware that there never were any nuclear or biological weapons or weapons programs in Iraq during the second gulf war (Bush himself is on record stating so; Bush senior did the job of disarming Iraq thoroughly in the first Gulf war),

1) Hans Blix -- hardly a Bush shill, and someone intimately familiar with EXACTLY what Saddam was able to accomplish before and after the war -- is ON RECORD as acknowledging that Saddam was within 90 days of being able to produce Anthrax in industrial quantities, 180 days of producing Botulin in industrial quantities, once sanctions were lifted (I may have those products reverse on the timeline). I believe this is carefully buried in his UN testimony and final report on WMDs in Iraq, and thoroughly ignored by the media.

2) Saddam's misuse of the "Oil for Food" monies clearly had him on track to get said sanctions lifted in fairly short order (probably not more than a year, certainly less than two) -- basically by bribing UN officials in a manner that makes Enron look like total and absolute cheapskate pikers.

Ergo, Saddam would have had ABC's within not more than 3 years from the onset of the war had the war not intervened. Call it before the end of 2006.

> that the Bush jr. administration fabricated plenty of fake evidence to make the case for war

... then Saddam would still be in power (More on this below), or, alternately, we would have had to remove him when he DID have ABC's in large quantities... that is, AFTER 2006.

> or at least had the smarts to pull out once we got rid of Saddam
... which would have led to a total internal collapse of the social infrastructure, the probable death of millions (as opposed to the 200k to 300k as has been reported by some rather lefty organizations), and the almost certain conditions such as those in Darfur, with a plethora of military strongmen vying for power in a totally failed nation.

> instead of killing more civilians than during the war in the occupation phase
Right. As above, we wouldn't be getting blamed for those millions of death since we weren't there to stabilize things after the government collapsed...
Oh, wait, it's a great bet that we would, that the media would be screaming about it still (because it would still be on-going, just as Darfur has been for a decade now -- only much more visibly)... and it would all be George Bush's fault (and they'd almost have a point in THIS hypothetical case).

> we’d have spent a few trillion less of taxpayer money,
Granted. Well, actually, no.
Obama would have just spent it all anyway.
But sorta, yeah.

> would be exactly as safe

Yes, because Saddam would not be giving ABC's to terrorists. He didn't like terrorists, which is why he didn't have three of the world's six known terrorist training camps as of 2002 operating inside Iraqi borders. That's why he didn't give hundreds of thousands of dollars to the families of the 911 hijackers. He HATED terrorists.

No, wait. Uh... never mind.

Or (alternate scenario):

Iraq collapsed, grinding poverty and death everywhere, with the media all blaming it on the USA's "irresponsible pull-out" after removing Saddam.

THAT sure as hell wouldn't be generating a few hundred thousand terrorists and a few million sympathizers across the entire middle east.NAWwwwww.

> and probably would have had a peaceful revolution by now like we’ve had in Tunesia and Egypt at absolutely no cost to the American taxpayer?

Ah, yeah, just like the one that deposed Ahminajad in 2009... Right?

Because we ALL know that Saddam learned his lesson after gassing 300,000 Kurds, and would NEVER, EVER use ABCs on protesters as ruthlessly as needed to stay in power -- we also KNOW that, like Egypt's military, the Fedayeen would NEVER EVER have fired on the protesters. Nawwwww...

What the hey -- Let's utterly ignore the notion that it has been, in fact, the opportunities for democracy and franchise that IRAQ ITSELF has shown the Islamic peoples it is capable of which has led to loud clamoring for it in Lebanon (failed so far), Palestine (effectively failed so far), Saudi Arabia (some reforms) and, most particularly -- EGYPT.

No, the exact same events would have occurred without the Iraqis standing there on broadcast television and YouTube videos with their purple-stained fingers held proudly high in the air. That had no effect at all. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch. And PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN, DAMMIT!!!

Regarding your link to the rather openly leftist Guardian (and yes, pretty much everyone -- including The Guardian, acks this):

"The biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq," Bush told ABC television in an interview scheduled for broadcast last night. "I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess."

The Guardian's imbecilic interpretation:last night admitted that the decision to go to war against Saddam Hussein on the basis of flawed intelligence was the biggest regret of his presidency.

WHAT? Those two aren't even CLOSE to the same statements. NOT EVEN THE SAME BALLPARK.

Bush is expressing regrets that the intel turned out to be WRONG, not the actions that resulted from it.

This flaw was used, rather endlessly, as a tub-thumping mechanism for sub-literate geniuses (i.e., those who can't read a simple declarative statement like he made and re-organize it with any competence) -- like yourself -- to criticize and find problems with not just the war, but with just about every aspect of it, good or bad, which followed. The claim being made by sub-literate geniuses (again, that would include YOU) that the war was illegitimate as a result of that inaccurate intel (despite a large number of alternative reasons -- 10 alternative reasons, IIRC, stated in his SOTU address -- for going to war).

In other words -- Bush himself delineated 11 different reasons for going to war in Iraq. ONE of them has turned out to be incorrect. Does the media ack the existence of the other 10, even to the point of attempting to tear them apart, too? F*** no! They just IGNORE those. They've found their whipping boy, ignore all those others!!

And this, also from The Guardian:
> But he followed that moment of candour with an attempt to try to deflect charges that the White House misled Congress and the public to build a case for war, arguing that there had been widespread belief that Saddam had a nuclear arsenal.

Yes, there aren't a RAFT of statements from members of the Clinton Admin, as well as Dems in Congress -- many dating from BEFORE Bush was even elected -- in which those same people claimed Saddam had weapons. No, it's "All George's Fault!"

"Bush lied", idiots cried!

> He was not asked about allegations that political pressure was brought to bear on the CIA and other intelligence agencies in the run-up to the war.

He was not asked about someone claiming Hillary had a lesbian relationship while First Lady, nor about Gore's large and varied collection of women's underwear. He also was not asked about allegations that Bill Clinton has AIDS he got from gay sex in a SF bathhouse.

Also, as to the consequence if we had gone in, deposed Saddam and left the country: you make a few bold assertions about what would have happened that are entirely unsubstantiated and that I wholeheartedly disagree with. That said, I wouldn't have given one flying fuck if we had done the right thing and the media had crucified us for it. It's the f-ing media, for god's sake. Set your expectations accordingly.

me

@Don - btw, thank you for that argument, spot on.

My meta-take on this one is that I'd prefer for us not to invest billions into dictatorships due to their unstable nature.

MJ

Not at all, there is EVERY indication that Gore would have done better, in the fact that Saddam would still be in power, armed with nuclear weapons, and one or more nukes or bioweapons would have already been used on US Soil by terrorists.

I'm glad that you can speak so confidently about something which never happened.